11 Shortcuts To Get Elite Status (Insider Secrets To FREE Perks)

00:00:00.000 | I love having elite status with airlines and hotels, because who doesn't want to be treated

00:00:05.160 | like a VIP every time you travel?

00:00:07.440 | Getting upgraded to first class, skipping long security lines, staying in a massive

00:00:11.360 | suite, getting free breakfast, not paying bag fees, resort fees, or seat selection fees,

00:00:16.580 | and a lot more.

00:00:17.580 | But it can take spending tens of thousands of dollars, flying around the world multiple

00:00:21.960 | times, or staying as many as 100 nights a year in a hotel.

00:00:25.360 | But today, I am going to share some insider tricks and give you 11 different ways to get

00:00:30.360 | that elite status and be treated like royalty on your next trip without all the time, money,

00:00:35.280 | and effort.

00:00:36.280 | Greg, thanks for being here.

00:00:38.800 | It's great to be here, Chris.

00:00:40.640 | We're laughing because we had to do a little bit of a retake because for some reason, nothing

00:00:44.120 | recorded for the first five minutes.

00:00:45.560 | Hey, if it's worth doing once, it's worth doing again.

00:00:48.640 | So we're going to talk about elite status.

00:00:50.840 | And I want to just kick off with, what is it?

00:00:53.720 | Why is it valuable?

00:00:55.360 | How do you get it?

00:00:56.360 | Yeah.

00:00:57.360 | In a way, it's a marketing ploy by big companies, by airlines and hotel programs, for example,

00:01:02.560 | to get their best customers to keep coming back.

00:01:05.800 | So what they do is when you're a good customer, they award you with a low level of elite status.

00:01:12.640 | And then when you're a better customer, they award you with next level elite status and

00:01:16.400 | so on.

00:01:17.720 | Most of these companies have three or four, sometimes even five levels of status.

00:01:23.720 | And the idea is that at each level, when you reach elite status, the idea is that next

00:01:29.640 | time you are a customer with that hotel or airline, you get treated better.

00:01:35.940 | Maybe with an airline, for example, you might get free seat selection into like comfort

00:01:42.480 | plus or the economy plus type of seating, or you might get onto the upgrade list for

00:01:48.880 | first class for free and you have a chance of getting upgraded.

00:01:51.800 | With hotels, it's things like room upgrades, sometimes to suites, sometimes it's things

00:01:56.560 | like free breakfast and other perks.

00:01:58.600 | How do you typically qualify for these statuses?

00:02:01.080 | Because they're not giving them away for free.

00:02:02.760 | No, they're not.

00:02:04.100 | With airlines, it used to be about how far you flew.

00:02:07.240 | So they would actually measure like how many miles you'd fly each year and the lowest level

00:02:11.840 | status would be like 25,000 miles flown and the next level might be 50,000 and top tier

00:02:17.440 | was usually around 100,000 miles flown, which is a heck of a lot.

00:02:22.360 | Yeah.

00:02:23.360 | Yeah.

00:02:24.360 | For anyone who doesn't know, that's what, four times around the world, probably at least

00:02:27.480 | 40 times across the country.

00:02:29.160 | Yeah.

00:02:30.160 | Yeah.

00:02:31.160 | And so of course they want to, they wanted to encourage those great customers to come

00:02:36.880 | back by giving them lots of perks.

00:02:38.400 | The problem was that there was a whole game in finding the cheapest, longest distance

00:02:46.160 | flights.

00:02:47.160 | And so people would do things called miles running, where they would earn status by booking,

00:02:52.560 | let's say a $300 flight to Asia that had like eight different stops along the way.

00:02:58.320 | So they're pinging back and forth in all these different ways and every, every segment is

00:03:03.480 | adding distance and so it's, it's you can build a really long flight for a cheap price.

00:03:12.280 | And at some point the airlines realized that's not the type of customer they really wanted

00:03:16.760 | to reward.

00:03:17.760 | They want to reward the customers that are spending the most with them.

00:03:20.440 | And so almost all of them have switched to a model of rewarding based on how much you

00:03:27.320 | spend with the airline as opposed to how far you fly.

00:03:30.280 | Now the hotels are fortunately still giving you status based on nights, so there's a little

00:03:34.480 | bit of gaming.

00:03:35.480 | If you find super cheap nights, mattress runs instead of mileage runs.

00:03:38.960 | Has anything else evolved with the way hotels handle things?

00:03:41.320 | No, you're right.

00:03:42.320 | I mean, they've, they've kept that.

00:03:43.600 | One thing that's evolved for the better for those of us that are into miles and points

00:03:48.000 | is that most of them now will, when you're on an awards day, you've booked a hotel free

00:03:54.920 | night with points or with a free night certificate.

00:03:58.120 | That usually does count as an eligible night towards elite status.

00:04:01.680 | It used to be that, that they often didn't count.

00:04:04.080 | Yeah.

00:04:05.080 | Actually, that's been great for people like you and I, who do a lot of awards.

00:04:08.500 | Exactly.

00:04:09.500 | And what on the airline side, can you use your points to fly and also earn status?

00:04:15.160 | Sometimes.

00:04:17.080 | So that's a fairly new phenomenon with Delta and United.

00:04:22.780 | When you use your miles to fly on those airlines, they treat each, every hundred miles spent

00:04:31.620 | as like a dollar, so like a hundred pennies.

00:04:34.200 | And so they treat it like that.

00:04:35.680 | So it counts as if you spent money and so it adds to your elite status that way.

00:04:40.260 | So in some way, that's an improvement for miles and points people, if you're trying

00:04:44.820 | to get status that way.

00:04:46.420 | What we're going to talk about today is mostly ways to get status without having to put in

00:04:50.300 | as much work as you might spending.

00:04:53.640 | Let's see.

00:04:54.640 | I'm going to guess somewhere on the order of five to 20, 25, $30,000 is about what I

00:05:00.780 | imagine these airlines are looking for you to spend to get their status across all these

00:05:04.580 | tiers.

00:05:05.580 | Yeah.

00:05:06.580 | That's, that's totally fair.

00:05:07.580 | It's in that range.

00:05:08.580 | Yeah.

00:05:09.580 | Yeah.

00:05:10.580 | Unless you're going for some of these kind of invite only statuses, there's concierge

00:05:13.700 | key on American 360 on Delta and global services on United.

00:05:18.100 | I know for a while, the global services threshold, everyone kind of, it wasn't published, but

00:05:22.340 | it was like spend more than $50,000.

00:05:25.040 | So there are some of these invite only statuses with even more perks, but you really need

00:05:30.460 | to be spending a lot and best.

00:05:32.400 | I know there is no way to game your way into them.

00:05:34.780 | Yeah.

00:05:35.780 | That's why I've never, never investigated them too much because you have to actually

00:05:40.180 | do the spend as far as I know to get into this.

00:05:42.800 | And today we're going to talk about how to not do the spend and get there.

00:05:46.540 | Anything that you think people might not realize isn't included when you get these different

00:05:51.220 | levels of elite status?

00:05:52.380 | Yeah.

00:05:53.380 | I mean, one thing that you might not realize with airline elite status is that at least

00:05:58.220 | the low level levels of status aren't going to get you into the airlines airport lounge.

00:06:06.660 | Even at the high level, it's not usually a set benefit as much as something that you

00:06:13.340 | can get as like a milestone reward that you can choose, but at the expense of other things,

00:06:18.020 | like you might give up global upgrade certificates if you choose to get lounge access.

00:06:22.180 | So there's a trade off there.

00:06:23.620 | Yeah.

00:06:24.620 | And you mentioned upgrade certificates.

00:06:25.620 | And I think it's important that people understand just because you have status doesn't mean

00:06:29.320 | you're getting upgraded.

00:06:30.460 | I know I have the bottom tier of status on United and since having United silver, I've

00:06:35.740 | never been upgraded.

00:06:37.060 | I am consistently somewhere around 100 on the upgrade list.

00:06:41.340 | And there's usually like eight seats available.

00:06:43.540 | Yeah.

00:06:44.540 | So unless you really hit, I would say that 75 to 125,000 level, which now is really based

00:06:52.580 | on dollars.

00:06:53.580 | But the former, the top one or two tiers, I wouldn't expect you're getting a lot of

00:06:57.900 | upgrades on an airline if you're flying from their hub.

00:07:01.500 | Now, maybe if you're flying other routes, but from San Francisco, you're probably never

00:07:05.500 | getting an upgraded on United at silver.

00:07:08.020 | Right.

00:07:09.020 | Yeah.

00:07:10.020 | And that's the key.

00:07:11.020 | You have to be like top tier to hope to get those upgrades.

00:07:14.700 | And but if you're flying from a smaller airport, you might find that bottom level silver, silver

00:07:21.020 | status does get you nice upgrades.

00:07:24.780 | It certainly has happened to me having United silver flying out of Detroit, which is a Delta

00:07:30.860 | hub and only has like five or six United flights.

00:07:35.860 | I have gotten upgraded.

00:07:37.700 | But but these are for short, like nothing flights like it's not that exciting.

00:07:41.820 | It's like a regional jet where you're getting upgraded to like a little leg room.

00:07:46.380 | And so you get, you know, so, yeah, so you're in a nicer seat for like an hour and a half

00:07:50.980 | and then you land and maybe the service includes a drink.

00:07:57.100 | And how do the airline alliances fit into status?

00:08:00.740 | So, yeah, this is a great thing about alliances.

00:08:05.860 | So there are three major airline alliances.

00:08:09.180 | There's Star Alliance, which United and Air Canada are part of.

00:08:14.020 | There's One World, which American and Alaska are part of.

00:08:17.900 | And by the way, I'm just mentioning a couple.

00:08:19.720 | Yeah, there's like 20 to 30 plus airlines.

00:08:23.340 | And then there's Sky Team, which regionally you have Delta and Aeromexico.

00:08:31.180 | And within these alliances, when you when you earn status with your with a particular

00:08:38.540 | airline that's in that alliance, you also can earn alliance status.

00:08:44.060 | So where that's really nice is with things like Star Alliance.

00:08:49.340 | If you get Star Alliance gold status, which usually goes along with like, let's say you

00:08:54.820 | get United gold status.

00:08:58.460 | That'll also give you Star Alliance gold status.

00:09:00.820 | And then that'll mean when you're flying outside of the United States on a Star Alliance carrier,

00:09:07.900 | you'll have access to the to whatever the Star Alliance lounge is when you're flying

00:09:13.420 | there.

00:09:14.420 | And you usually, if I remember right, get a few other perks, like maybe some free checked

00:09:17.860 | bags on the carriers in the alliance, maybe priority boarding or security, but probably

00:09:23.740 | not upgrades.

00:09:26.420 | That's true.

00:09:27.420 | Yeah, exactly.

00:09:28.420 | Yeah.

00:09:29.420 | And it can be valuable.

00:09:30.420 | I've had times where I had a temporary Star Alliance gold status from a status match once.

00:09:36.140 | And you know, I went into an airline, it was I think I was flying Ethiopian in Africa and

00:09:44.940 | there were huge lines, but I saw the Star Alliance gold security line.

00:09:50.140 | I'm like, Oh, I'll go over there.

00:09:52.100 | Just breathe, breathe through.

00:09:53.100 | And that was great.

00:09:54.100 | And then to get in the lounge, too, and I was just flying economy.

00:09:56.820 | So it was great.

00:09:58.160 | Super helpful, especially because a lot of us are so used to TSA pre and clear and you

00:10:02.620 | go overseas.

00:10:03.620 | Not there.

00:10:04.620 | Yeah.

00:10:05.620 | So what I want to do today is I wrote a list of about 11 different ways, some of this from

00:10:11.300 | just watching your content, that you can shortcut this process and you can get elite status

00:10:17.660 | without having to put in all the effort, as well as after that, we'll talk a little bit

00:10:22.180 | about some ways that you might get a lot of these perks without even worrying about elite

00:10:25.340 | status.

00:10:26.340 | So I think the first one I'll start with is just having a credit card.

00:10:30.680 | Can just having a credit card get you elite status on airlines and hotel groups, or do

00:10:36.020 | you really need to spend a lot?

00:10:37.780 | There's plenty of opportunities to have hotel elite status from just having a credit card.

00:10:44.240 | Off the top of my head, I can't remember if there's any good airline elite statuses you

00:10:49.600 | have with a credit card, unless you're thinking of the American Express Centurion.

00:10:54.160 | Yes, that was the one that came to mind because I have one friend who has it and he's like,

00:10:57.900 | I get Delta Platinum status by having American Express Centurion and I'm like, that's awesome.

00:11:03.700 | It also comes with an annual fee that's like $7,500 or something, and an initiation fee

00:11:08.780 | that's like $5,000 so I'm not sure that's a great trade off, but at least for me, it

00:11:14.980 | exists.

00:11:15.980 | And then I said, have a credit card.

00:11:18.340 | I believe if you have two credit cards, you could earn yourself some Delta status.

00:11:22.200 | Delta has Delta Platinum card and they have a Delta Reserve card and each of them will

00:11:28.060 | give you a $2,500 MQD headstart just by having the card.

00:11:35.540 | And an MQD is Medallion Qualifying Dollars.

00:11:39.240 | And so the idea is just by having the card, Delta acts as if you've spent $2,500 with

00:11:46.260 | Delta.

00:11:47.840 | And so first level Silver status with Delta, this year anyway, requires 5,000 MQDs total.

00:11:57.180 | So if you have two Delta cards, you'll have those two headstarts, you'll have 5,000 MQDs

00:12:03.900 | and boom, you've got Silver status just by holding those two cards.

00:12:06.620 | No flights.

00:12:07.700 | No flights.

00:12:08.700 | Yeah.

00:12:09.700 | And if you were to get both the personal and business version of the Platinum and the Reserve

00:12:14.300 | card, you could conceivably get your way to Gold status, but it would use up a lot of

00:12:19.100 | your Amex card slots.

00:12:21.140 | That's right.

00:12:22.140 | That's right.

00:12:23.140 | Amex doesn't want you to have more than five credit cards and these are credit cards as

00:12:26.620 | opposed to like charge cards or pay over time cards.

00:12:29.980 | And so that would use up four out of your five slots.

00:12:33.420 | So you wouldn't be able to then also have more than one Marriott or Hilton card, for

00:12:38.300 | example, with Amex.

00:12:40.580 | So with a few cards, like the Marriott Brilliant card, which these cards, by the way, all typically

00:12:46.640 | have annual fees kind of in the ballpark of hundreds of dollars, you can get Marriott

00:12:50.460 | Platinum and with the Hilton Aspire, you can get Hilton Diamond.

00:12:55.140 | And then I would say all of the entry tier hotel statuses, which don't get you a lot,

00:13:01.860 | are very easy to get.

00:13:02.860 | There are lots of cards that will give you, you know, Marriott Gold or Silver even, which

00:13:10.100 | is really not worth it.

00:13:11.100 | I even forgot about it because I feel like I don't even know what it would get you.

00:13:14.140 | Yeah.

00:13:15.140 | You might score a bottle of water in a hotel that doesn't normally give those out.

00:13:19.020 | But Hyatt is a tricky one.

00:13:20.300 | I don't think you can get status with just having a card or can you get the base tier?

00:13:24.620 | I think they do give you Discoverist, which is Hyatt's bottom tier, which is really not

00:13:31.100 | worth aspiring to.

00:13:33.420 | OK, so so cards will make it easy to get status way more on hotels and airlines.

00:13:40.220 | Yeah.

00:13:41.220 | But that top tier of status on airlines is going to be almost impossible by just having

00:13:46.500 | a card, even on Delta.

00:13:47.940 | Right.

00:13:48.940 | And when it comes to Hyatt and IHG, you can't just get a card and get the status.

00:13:52.780 | Is that right?

00:13:53.780 | That's right.

00:13:54.780 | Yeah.

00:13:55.780 | Now, Marriott does have a higher tier of status than Platinum, so you can't get all the way

00:13:59.380 | to their top level like you can with Hilton.

00:14:02.740 | But the real big benefits on Marriott come from getting to Platinum, where you start

00:14:07.700 | to get free breakfast and those things.

00:14:09.940 | I do.

00:14:10.940 | I do think there is one bonus that I don't know where I couldn't figure out where to

00:14:13.980 | fit in this narrative.

00:14:15.100 | But if you get to Marriott Titanium status, you do get free United Silver status, which

00:14:21.300 | is a great perk that I've had in the past.

00:14:24.380 | But you got to go do 75 nights.

00:14:27.460 | And the nights you earn, unfortunately, from a lot of these cards, the status you earn

00:14:32.580 | from these cards does not necessarily count towards your nights towards the next level.

00:14:38.060 | So you might get a free Marriott Platinum with the Brilliant card, but you still need

00:14:42.980 | to get to 75 nights to get to the next to get to the next.

00:14:46.420 | Yeah.

00:14:47.420 | And that's that's a common question we get all the time, like, hey, I got I got free

00:14:51.360 | gold status because I have the Amex Platinum card, let's say so.

00:14:55.060 | Does that give me, you know, so do I have to do fewer nights to get to the next level?

00:15:00.340 | And no, no, it doesn't.

00:15:02.700 | However, the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant card, which gives you platinum status outright.

00:15:09.140 | It's true that that platinum status doesn't give you a leg up towards the next level up

00:15:13.540 | of titanium.

00:15:15.220 | But the card also gives you 25 nights towards elite status each year.

00:15:23.060 | So just by having that card, you know, you're 25 nights into the 75 nights you would need

00:15:30.140 | for titanium status right there and a lot of the same thing, like the Delta.

00:15:34.580 | If you just have one Delta card, you don't have status, but you get a little bit of a

00:15:36.980 | head start.

00:15:37.980 | Right.

00:15:38.980 | And that dovetails perfectly to the next step, which is to spend on the credit cards.

00:15:42.380 | So a lot of these cards might give you a little bit of your way there.

00:15:46.480 | But if you spend enough, you can get all your way there.

00:15:50.500 | Some make this easier than others.

00:15:52.180 | What would you say on the airline front?

00:15:54.240 | Who makes it the easiest?

00:15:55.900 | So I would have previously said American Airlines makes it the easiest.

00:16:00.500 | But right now it's it's sort of a neck and neck race between AA and Delta.

00:16:05.100 | They both make it pretty easy to do that through spend right now.

00:16:09.620 | On the flip side, you have United, where United makes it possible to spend your way to status.

00:16:16.380 | But you have to spend like an order of magnitude more with United to get the same level of

00:16:21.300 | status that you could get with AA or Delta.

00:16:24.100 | So on American, you know, it's anywhere from thirty five thousand on the low end with with

00:16:28.700 | the right card all the way up to like two hundred thousand on Delta.

00:16:33.020 | It's from zero, like we mentioned, with the right cards all the way up to like two hundred

00:16:36.860 | thirty two hundred fifty thousand, depending on how many cards you have.

00:16:40.460 | And then on United top tier status, you have to spend four hundred and eighty thousand

00:16:43.980 | dollars.

00:16:44.980 | Yeah.

00:16:45.980 | To get there.

00:16:46.980 | And on the low end, you have to spend one hundred thousand dollars.

00:16:47.980 | Right.

00:16:48.980 | Right.

00:16:49.980 | So that's where you've got an order of magnitude higher.

00:16:50.980 | Yeah.

00:16:51.980 | So that's that's amazing.

00:16:52.980 | If you think about Delta where you could spend zero or or let's say you just have two Delta

00:16:57.740 | cards, then you're spending, what, five thousand to get to that first level versus what you

00:17:03.300 | say?

00:17:04.300 | One hundred thousand.

00:17:05.300 | One hundred thousand on United.

00:17:06.300 | You know, I mean, obviously, United's not as interested as American and Delta are in

00:17:11.060 | encouraging the credit card spend by through elite status anyway.

00:17:16.060 | It seems United really wants you to fly on airplanes and they're the only one that still

00:17:19.800 | has a requirement of like number of segments flown.

00:17:23.180 | You have a minimum number of segments you have to fly with United to to keep status

00:17:27.060 | where the others you could totally get status without ever flying.

00:17:31.100 | Yeah.

00:17:32.100 | And then two other airlines worth calling out.

00:17:33.580 | So JetBlue will let you spend your way towards status.

00:17:37.220 | I think at an order I didn't do the math, but you need 50 to 250 tiles and each tile

00:17:42.580 | costs a thousand dollars of spend.

00:17:44.220 | So 50 to two hundred fifty thousand dollars.

00:17:46.020 | So kind of on the same same order of magnitude, but with a lot less flexibility because they

00:17:51.680 | just don't have as many partners as all the other airlines and they don't fly as many

00:17:54.280 | places.

00:17:55.280 | And then the other is Southwest.

00:17:56.860 | While you can't spend your way, I guess you can spend your way, I think, to a list, but

00:18:01.040 | it's it's hard.

00:18:02.560 | You can very easily spend your way, especially with the help of signup bonuses to companion

00:18:08.480 | pass, which funny enough, is on a different track than a list.

00:18:12.120 | It's like you you can every dollar you earn on your credit card or your Southwest points

00:18:17.420 | from just flying.

00:18:18.420 | They all count towards companion pass.

00:18:19.860 | If you get three hundred and thirty five thousand Southwest points, you get companion pass and

00:18:24.260 | you can nominate one person and that person can fly for free other than taxes all the

00:18:29.860 | year you earn it and the next year.

00:18:32.460 | And I think that is actually a distinction we didn't bring up.

00:18:34.860 | Usually when you earn a status, you get it for that year and the following year.

00:18:39.660 | So if you time it well and you're able to earn it in January on Southwest, for example,

00:18:44.620 | you would get to have a companion for the whole year and the whole next year.

00:18:48.740 | And because welcome bonuses count towards that right now, for example, the Southwest

00:18:53.620 | cards are doing an eighty five thousand point welcome bonus that gets you more than halfway

00:18:57.580 | towards companion pass.

00:18:58.760 | Yeah.

00:18:59.760 | Yeah.

00:19:00.760 | You're really close.

00:19:01.760 | And having a card also takes ten thousand points off the requirement for companion pass.

00:19:06.180 | So, yeah, it really makes it easy.

00:19:09.780 | And so I know a lot of couples who will every two years alternate who signs up for two companion

00:19:19.860 | or two Southwest cards right at the end of the year so that they'll complete the spend

00:19:25.140 | for the sign up bonus in January.

00:19:28.860 | Then you know, they'll have the companion pass then for the rest of that calendar year

00:19:32.340 | and all of the next and then their spouse does it two years later and they keep altering.

00:19:37.500 | It is a very common points thing.

00:19:39.980 | You guys have a whole article on it that I'll link to in the show notes about how to achieve

00:19:43.380 | companion pass.

00:19:44.380 | But man, if you are anywhere near a bunch of Southwest flights, it is an awesome status

00:19:49.220 | to have.

00:19:50.220 | Doesn't really get you any priority boarding, doesn't really get you any feature other than

00:19:53.580 | a free companion, but no one else is doing that.

00:19:56.980 | It's super valuable for sure.

00:19:58.760 | And then on the hotel front, we talked about how, you know, Marriott makes it easy to get

00:20:03.880 | to Platinum Diamond on Hilton is as easy as getting the Aspire card.

00:20:08.360 | So I don't want to spend too much time.

00:20:10.200 | Yes, you could probably spend money on cards and earn status, right?

00:20:13.480 | But I think the coveted status is Hyatt Globalist, which, you know, best I know, I've never actually

00:20:19.760 | had it.

00:20:20.760 | It is the best status to have in the hotel world, but you can't just get it for free.

00:20:26.120 | Can you spend your way to get it?

00:20:27.480 | Yeah, you can.

00:20:28.480 | Well, let's first say why it's so coveted.

00:20:31.680 | I think Hyatt does a better job than the other chains of making sure that their individual

00:20:36.120 | hotels actually fulfill the promise of elite status.

00:20:40.460 | You can then go to any Hyatt and you can be pretty confident you really are going to get

00:20:45.760 | free breakfast, which contrasts greatly with Marriott, where at Platinum status, you're

00:20:52.680 | supposed to get free breakfast.

00:20:54.000 | But there are so many clauses to that statement that we made a chart showing, you know, are

00:21:05.720 | you going to get free breakfast?

00:21:07.520 | And what does it mean at all these different brands with Marriott?

00:21:11.200 | But even if you know whether or not you're supposed to get free breakfast with a particular

00:21:15.680 | brand with Marriott, Marriott doesn't do a great job of making sure that the individual

00:21:19.880 | hotels adhere to that.

00:21:22.640 | So often they'll just kind of opt out or give you a certificate for $10 at the coffee shop

00:21:28.000 | or that.

00:21:29.000 | And they're like, "Yeah, we have a beautiful buffet.

00:21:31.360 | You get $10 so you can get a coffee and a bagel."

00:21:34.240 | Probably not a bagel, maybe a croissant.

00:21:36.960 | There are Hyatt hotels that'll play games like that, but I just feel like overall Hyatt

00:21:41.000 | does a better job of managing that.

00:21:42.680 | More than that, some of the benefits they guarantee are just so valuable.

00:21:48.160 | Things like free parking on award stays, which can be incredibly valuable, especially in

00:21:55.200 | big cities.

00:21:56.200 | I mean, imagine easily saving $70 to $100 a night in New York City or LA.

00:22:03.960 | Or San Francisco.

00:22:04.960 | Or San Francisco.

00:22:05.960 | Or San Francisco.

00:22:06.960 | My dad had a really early doctor's appointment at UCSF and he's like, "We just want to stay

00:22:10.600 | in the city.

00:22:11.600 | We don't have to drive in."

00:22:12.600 | And they stayed at a Marriott.

00:22:14.080 | He has titanium status.

00:22:16.320 | And that parking was still somewhere around $90.

00:22:18.480 | Yeah, because Marriott doesn't have that benefit, but Hyatt does.

00:22:22.040 | Another one that Hyatt has is on paid stays, no resort fees.

00:22:27.960 | So Hyatt does not charge resort fees at all if you book a stay with points.

00:22:35.840 | Hilton also doesn't do that with points.

00:22:39.040 | Marriott does though.

00:22:40.920 | But Hyatt also, on a paid stay, if you have top tier status, you're not going to pay the

00:22:45.880 | resort fee, which at some hotels can be absolutely massive.

00:22:49.520 | Yeah.

00:22:50.520 | Especially if you're staying for a week and all that stuff.

00:22:52.640 | Yeah.

00:22:53.640 | Well, I mean, there are high-end resorts that cost $1,000, $2,000 a night where their resort

00:23:00.000 | fee is a percentage.

00:23:01.800 | It's like 20%.

00:23:02.800 | Oh, I've never seen one of those.

00:23:03.800 | So you're talking really big money and it's all waived.

00:23:06.600 | That's awesome.

00:23:07.600 | Yeah.

00:23:08.600 | I think that in one of two ways, you get some headstart with some of the cards, right?

00:23:13.760 | If you sign up for the Hyatt business or personal card.

00:23:17.040 | The personal card will give you five late nights each year.

00:23:20.080 | So you're five out of 60 there to top tier.

00:23:23.520 | But if you spend, you can get yourself there, I think it's about $100,000.

00:23:28.640 | Does that sound right?

00:23:29.640 | If you have both cards and you spend them optimally, because one of them gives you a

00:23:32.680 | headstart.

00:23:33.680 | The other one gives you a little bit of a faster way there while spending.

00:23:36.560 | That's right.

00:23:37.560 | So the personal card will give you two elite nights for every $5,000 you spend.

00:23:43.960 | So there you're talking about closer to $120,000 spend, but then you've got to subtract out

00:23:48.560 | the five you got automatically.

00:23:49.920 | So whatever that is with the business card, which doesn't give you free nights automatically

00:23:55.000 | at all.

00:23:56.000 | You can also get with $50,000 spend, you'll get a rebate on points, on points bookings

00:24:02.540 | for the rest of that year, up to a cap.

00:24:06.080 | So not only are you earning more elite nights with that spend than you would with the equivalent

00:24:10.080 | spend on the personal card, but you're also getting that other perk.

00:24:16.320 | So the ideal combination, if you just want to spend your way to Hyatt Globalist is to

00:24:20.720 | spend $15,000 on the personal card, because that $15,000 spend will also get you a second

00:24:26.360 | free night.

00:24:27.360 | Which you can use to kind of get one of your nights towards 60.

00:24:31.680 | And then the business card $50,000 spend is ideal.

00:24:36.060 | Yeah, I think I did the math.

00:24:37.440 | And if you wanted to optimally do it, you'd have to put about $108,000 on those two cards.

00:24:43.100 | Now I want to be clear, this is not a strategy where you just go out and spend $108,000.

00:24:49.580 | A friend of mine actually did this, he had a big tax bill, and he split it out over the

00:24:54.260 | course of the year on a Hyatt card, or actually, I think he only did it on one.

00:24:57.660 | So maybe he ended up spending $110,000.

00:25:00.460 | But that $110,000 cost him, let's call it round up a little bit to 2% of fees.

00:25:06.720 | So he spent about $2,000.

00:25:08.980 | He got Hyatt Globalist, but he also got 100,000 Hyatt points, which depending on how you want

00:25:15.460 | to value them could be anywhere from $1,000 to $2,000 also.

00:25:20.260 | And so he kind of basically pre-bought 100,000 Hyatt points and got free Globalist by paying

00:25:26.740 | a lot of tax bills on his credit card.

00:25:28.340 | If you were just out for the points, you'd be better off doing a Chase Ultimate Rewards

00:25:33.220 | card that earns 1.5 points per dollar everywhere.

00:25:37.020 | The Freedom Unlimited or the Ink Business Unlimited, because those can be transferred

00:25:42.180 | to Hyatt one-to-one, so you'd earn a lot more Hyatt points that way, 50% more.

00:25:49.420 | But it wouldn't give you the status, and so if the status is important to you, then that's

00:25:55.500 | great.

00:25:56.500 | The other thing to mention is Hyatt also has these milestone rewards.

00:26:01.500 | So when you get 20 nights, 30 nights, 40 nights, 50 nights, 60 nights, 70 nights, etc., each

00:26:07.220 | time you sometimes get an automatic reward and sometimes you get to pick in addition

00:26:13.860 | to the automatic one, you get to pick something.

00:26:17.500 | So those have value too.

00:26:19.820 | So your friend not only got all those Hyatt points, but he also got upgrade certificates.

00:26:26.480 | He got some extra free nights.

00:26:30.340 | He got Guest of Honor awards, which can be used to, if you don't have Globalist yet and

00:26:38.940 | you get a Guest of Honor award, it can be used to upgrade your own stay to a Globalist

00:26:43.060 | stay and you get the free parking, free breakfast, and all that kind of stuff.

00:26:49.060 | Or if you have a friend who you want to give Globalist status to for a stay, you could

00:26:55.700 | give them that Guest of Honor award.

00:26:57.440 | An interesting point you made in a recent episode was around Hyatt status and I'd always

00:27:03.020 | thought, "Okay, I'm going to go for Globalist because I've got some spending to do for taxes

00:27:07.140 | this year."

00:27:08.140 | And then I realized, "Well, I'm probably only staying once or twice a year at a Hyatt."

00:27:12.940 | And so to go all the way to Globalist might not actually be worth it because at 40 nights,

00:27:18.800 | you get this Guest of Honor coupon that you can use for yourself to give yourself Globalist

00:27:22.540 | for a stay.

00:27:23.540 | Right, right.

00:27:24.540 | And you can also get a few Club Access awards, so you can use those.

00:27:27.200 | So I'll just caution people that are excited about Globalist, you might not even need it

00:27:32.020 | if you're not traveling that much.

00:27:33.620 | Right.

00:27:34.620 | At 40 nights, you get both the Guest of Honor and you can pick a suite upgrade award.

00:27:38.760 | And so now, unfortunately, you can't use them on the same stay, but if you have two Hyatt

00:27:44.680 | stays coming up, one where you'd really benefit with booking at the lowest rate and then upgrading

00:27:52.440 | to a suite, that would be the perfect use of that suite upgrade certificate.

00:27:58.240 | And another one where you'd really benefit from all the perks of Globalist, apply your

00:28:03.520 | Guest of Honor certificate to that other one.

00:28:05.680 | So you could have two fantastic stays with what you get at 40 nights.

00:28:10.380 | And by the way, if you get to 40 nights and then you have two fantastic stays, those stays

00:28:15.200 | count towards the nights, so you're probably pretty close now to 60.

00:28:19.280 | You don't actually need to get all the way to Globalist before you stay.

00:28:22.220 | You can get to that 40K level and then maybe those nights will get you the rest of the

00:28:25.960 | way there.

00:28:26.960 | So maybe it's actually not 108 because if you're going to do all this, you better be

00:28:30.400 | staying at Hyatt.

00:28:31.400 | Exactly.

00:28:32.400 | I was going to say that earlier that for most people, it doesn't make sense to spend your

00:28:36.980 | way entirely to it because you want to use your actual stays to help you get there and

00:28:44.480 | then you won't have as much spend required.

00:28:47.360 | If you don't have actual stays at Hyatt, there's no point in doing this at all if you don't

00:28:52.160 | have actual stays.

00:28:53.160 | Yeah.

00:28:54.160 | Okay.

00:28:55.160 | So that's spending on cards.

00:28:56.160 | And so that seems to be a way with almost every program you can get your way to status.

00:29:01.080 | It's just going to cost you a lot with some like United and a lot less with others.

00:29:04.640 | Yeah.

00:29:05.640 | Can you spend money outside of a card to get status with any of these programs or is it

00:29:09.540 | always have to be on one of their cards?

00:29:11.640 | So American has a really interesting loyalty program.

00:29:15.920 | They totally gamified their elite program and what they did is they said almost every

00:29:21.800 | time, not every time, but almost every time that you earn an American Airlines mile, you'll

00:29:25.920 | also earn something called a loyalty point and it's the loyalty points with American

00:29:30.440 | that decide what level of elite status you've attained.

00:29:34.400 | And so if you think about it with all of these airline and hotel programs, there's multiple

00:29:39.800 | ways to earn their points.

00:29:41.200 | It's not just spend on the credit card.

00:29:42.440 | It's not just spend with them.

00:29:44.040 | There's also things like there are online shopping portals where you could shop through

00:29:50.960 | like the Advantage eShopping portal and click through from the portal to shop at like Macy's.com

00:29:59.520 | or something.

00:30:00.520 | And the American Airlines portal might say you'll get five miles per dollar for shopping

00:30:05.080 | at Macy's.

00:30:06.120 | Then let's say you buy something that's a thousand dollars.

00:30:10.120 | Then you'd get 5,000 American Airlines miles and 5,000 loyalty points.

00:30:15.280 | So you can do that.

00:30:17.060 | They also partner with like a, they have a hotel booking engine.

00:30:21.820 | They have car rentals.

00:30:24.600 | There's a lot of different things like that where just your normal everyday, I'm about

00:30:29.560 | to like, I'm about to spend money online.

00:30:33.060 | There might be a way of doing it so that you'll get a lot of American Airlines miles and loyalty

00:30:37.960 | points towards elite status.

00:30:40.240 | And now keep in mind for anyone listening, a lot of these other airlines have these same

00:30:43.680 | shopping portals.

00:30:44.680 | They just don't give you anything towards elite status.

00:30:46.800 | We've talked about how to use cards and spending to get to status and obviously the standard

00:30:50.600 | ways.

00:30:51.600 | You mentioned status match earlier, just very briefly.

00:30:54.680 | How do status matches work?

00:30:55.940 | When do they make sense?

00:30:57.440 | Yeah.

00:30:58.440 | So status matches, usually the way it works is you are basically saying to an airline,

00:31:05.240 | you know, Hey, I have been spending all my money with United, but now I want to, I want

00:31:10.680 | to try out Delta, but I don't want to start from ground zero.

00:31:14.160 | I'm used to my elite perks with United.

00:31:17.040 | So Delta then will say, okay, we'll give you a matching status level for usually it's 90

00:31:25.520 | days.

00:31:26.520 | And then there'll be a challenge component to it.

00:31:30.160 | If you fly a certain amount, and in this case, if you spend a certain amount with Delta in

00:31:35.800 | that, in those 90 days, while you have this trial status, then you get to keep it, uh,

00:31:42.040 | for longer.

00:31:43.040 | And, and, uh, Delta's status match is actually very generous right now.

00:31:46.480 | It's letting you keep it for the rest of the current calendar year, all of the next and

00:31:51.680 | into January of the year after that.

00:31:53.920 | So that is actually similar to how I got my status.

00:31:57.060 | So there's status matches, there's status matches that have a challenge component.

00:32:01.020 | And then sometimes they're just status challenges where I was able to do a challenge to get

00:32:05.820 | my United silver status where I didn't have any status at all.

00:32:09.620 | And it often feels like whatever the requirement for a year is, if you can hit one quarter

00:32:14.380 | of that requirement in 90 days, they'll let you keep the status.

00:32:18.140 | Now the next year you have to do the full requirement, but, um, do you see those pop

00:32:22.700 | up a lot?

00:32:23.700 | Or was I pretty lucky in finding one?

00:32:25.260 | That's very common.

00:32:26.460 | And, um, often if you work for a large corporation, there's often deals with, uh, different brands

00:32:33.300 | that where they'll, they'll have open status matches, like what you described for any employee.

00:32:39.380 | Um, Hyatt will do that with a lot of, uh, businesses.

00:32:43.300 | They'll give you a, a challenge where, um, you have to stay 20 nights within three months,

00:32:50.900 | let's say to get a globalist status.

00:32:53.780 | Now within those status matches, I'll point out that I am pretty sure that none of the

00:32:57.860 | tricks we just talked about work.

00:32:59.460 | So it's not within 90 days, earn 20 nights from your credit card spend or from, you know,

00:33:04.940 | other loyalty points.

00:33:06.460 | You usually in those challenges have to actually do the main way of earning points.

00:33:09.920 | Almost always.

00:33:10.920 | And, and I mentioned though, uh, Delta's generous status match before Delta's will let spend

00:33:17.020 | on their credit cards count towards meeting that match.

00:33:20.300 | Okay.

00:33:21.300 | So United will absolutely not absolutely not.

00:33:23.980 | Yeah.

00:33:24.980 | And Hyatt as well.

00:33:26.100 | Okay.

00:33:27.100 | And there's two websites.

00:33:28.100 | Status matcher is a website that just has a database of all of these different matches.

00:33:32.260 | Like people report, I got success going from a to B. So you might have success there.

00:33:37.340 | Yeah.

00:33:38.340 | It's really useful.

00:33:39.340 | Cause you know, you might be like, Oh, this is the first time I'm going to stay at a,

00:33:42.420 | I don't know, Wyndham property or something.

00:33:45.180 | I've got my Hilton status.

00:33:46.900 | Can I match over?

00:33:48.340 | And you can check status match or.com to see does, would that work before you waste your

00:33:53.260 | time trying to do it?

00:33:54.260 | Yep.

00:33:55.260 | And I'll, I'll point out that usually there's some window where you can't repeat these.

00:33:59.820 | So if you do a status match because you're about to stay at a Wyndham and you can't keep

00:34:05.140 | up that status and you're not going to probably be able to do it again next year.

00:34:09.660 | That's true.

00:34:10.660 | There's two reasons you might want to do a status match.

00:34:12.460 | One might be because you really think you're going to meet the challenge and keep the status

00:34:17.980 | longer because you really are going to start you know, flying that airline or staying in

00:34:23.500 | that hotel brand more.

00:34:25.140 | The other reason is that you have a big trip coming up and you want to have elite status

00:34:29.080 | for that trip.

00:34:30.080 | And so you do that challenge and, and then you have that trade off of saying, well, okay,

00:34:36.140 | I'm going to do this challenge now, but depending on the rules of the particular program, it

00:34:40.700 | might be five years before I can do another one.

00:34:43.020 | Yep.

00:34:44.020 | And you often can't match a free status to a challenge.

00:34:49.740 | Is that right?

00:34:50.740 | Like if I got United Silver from having Marriott Titanium, I couldn't match my United Silver

00:34:54.620 | to a Delta status if I got it for free from Marriott.

00:34:59.060 | Technically you're not supposed to, but it, it often works.

00:35:02.460 | Okay.

00:35:03.460 | They'll often ask you for the history, your history.

00:35:08.420 | So not just, not just a picture of like your screen showing that you have a certain level

00:35:13.300 | of status, but also in the case of airlines, like your, your flying history with that airline

00:35:19.180 | that you're matching from.

00:35:21.380 | And I've done that.

00:35:24.140 | I've matched from Delta to others where all of my Delta history or almost all of it was

00:35:29.100 | all like award flights, um, or earning, um, earning elite status from credit card spend.

00:35:36.660 | And that's all in my like transaction history.

00:35:39.260 | And they still like, they just see a pile of stuff and they don't know what it is.

00:35:42.700 | Okay.

00:35:43.700 | And so it's, so it's, it's worth trying for sure.

00:35:47.460 | Awesome.

00:35:48.460 | Yeah.

00:35:49.460 | I mean, I guess a big theme that I hear you guys always talk about on your show is, but

00:35:52.660 | it doesn't hurt to try like the worst thing.

00:35:55.420 | They just say no.

00:35:56.420 | It's amazing how many times it just works, even if you just try.

00:35:59.300 | Yeah.

00:36:00.300 | Yeah.

00:36:01.300 | And separate from status matches and challenges, sometimes they're just offers.

00:36:03.780 | So there was an offer a few weeks ago that was on Southwest, which I feel like they've

00:36:07.920 | done one or two of these a year, the past few years, which is fly around trip flight

00:36:12.140 | and get companion pass for three months, fly to Hawaii, get companion pass for right.

00:36:17.460 | Two months, that kind of stuff.

00:36:19.960 | I don't know why Southwest keeps doing this, but there, there have been a handful of times

00:36:24.480 | where just taking one round trip flight would net you at least a couple months of companion

00:36:29.520 | pass.

00:36:30.520 | They do it because they think they're going to encourage more, you know, flying more revenue

00:36:34.740 | than they would without it.

00:36:36.060 | So, you know, once you get that companion pass, you're very much incentivized to, to

00:36:40.820 | fly Southwest instead of the competition.

00:36:43.940 | That's fair.

00:36:44.940 | And then every now and then there's, and maybe this is kind of a similar thing to what we

00:36:49.380 | described with a challenge, but I know if you get to built platinum, you get Air France

00:36:54.620 | KLM flying blue status, um, I think for a year and I don't think it's a challenge and

00:36:59.780 | that you don't have to do anything.

00:37:01.040 | So it's kind of a promotion, but it's not forever.

00:37:03.700 | Right.

00:37:04.700 | And it's not automatic.

00:37:05.700 | It's like you have to, I think you have to transfer some, uh, points to Air France KLM

00:37:11.380 | to trigger that you'll get that status for a year.

00:37:14.340 | Exactly.

00:37:15.340 | Yeah.

00:37:16.340 | We have an Air France flight coming up this summer and I'm like, is it worth doing this?

00:37:18.820 | I mean, we might have to change our flights and whatever status it matches to does not

00:37:23.600 | waive change fees on Air France, which is what I was really hoping for.

00:37:26.660 | Right.

00:37:27.660 | Right.

00:37:28.660 | Um, and, and by the way, I, I don't know if we mentioned this before, but in general,

00:37:32.260 | if you're, if you're flying, um, you know, regional first class or international business

00:37:37.820 | class on any of these airlines, most of these elite benefits aren't going to help you at

00:37:43.820 | all because you're already getting all the, all the perks you're getting.

00:37:47.580 | You're already upfront, you're, you're already in boarding group, at least close to boarding

00:37:52.500 | group one.

00:37:53.500 | The really, the only thing at that point that helps sometimes you could get, um, change

00:37:58.620 | fees waived.

00:37:59.900 | You could get, uh, and sometimes you get special treatment.

00:38:02.780 | You just wrote a post about getting bumped from business class on an airline that I don't

00:38:07.260 | think you had status on.

00:38:08.260 | Is that right?

00:38:09.260 | That's right.

00:38:10.260 | That's right.

00:38:11.260 | Had you had status on that airline?

00:38:12.260 | I'm sure I would not have gotten bumped.

00:38:13.420 | That's right.

00:38:14.420 | I was flying Lufthansa using miles from, from, uh, Avianca life miles had booked a, a Lufthansa

00:38:20.900 | business class ticket.

00:38:22.380 | I got bumped to premium economy.

00:38:25.020 | Um, some speculate that, you know, that like, why was I picked?

00:38:30.520 | Some speculate, and I don't know if this is true, that maybe from Lufthansa's point of

00:38:35.860 | view, I might've been on the cheapest business class ticket on the plane, right?

00:38:41.080 | But had you had Lufthansa status linked to that flight?

00:38:43.580 | I'm guessing.

00:38:44.580 | Sure.

00:38:45.580 | They would have left you, let you stay in that business class seat.

00:38:46.580 | Bump somebody else.

00:38:47.580 | So Marriott actually has a, uh, guarantee.

00:38:50.580 | So if you have elite status, um, and you get walked, they, they promise you all kinds of

00:38:56.260 | points and things.

00:38:57.660 | Um, but there's also like, what will the hotel that walks you do for you?

00:39:02.660 | Uh, so one time we were walked in Germany in Baden-Baden from the Marriott there.

00:39:11.020 | And the email we got said that they were going to put us up at, at this all suites hotel.

00:39:15.980 | And I look it up, it's bad reviews.

00:39:17.820 | It's, it's a cheap hotel.

00:39:19.180 | Like it's, it's like half the price of the, the one we had booked.

00:39:22.900 | Um, so I researched what's the best hotel in Baden-Baden and I found one that looked

00:39:27.540 | amazing.

00:39:28.960 | And so I wrote back and said, you know, Hey, we were really looking forward to staying

00:39:33.540 | at the room, Rumors Baden-Baden, uh, cause of what a great, you know, a reputation you

00:39:39.260 | have.

00:39:40.260 | And we'd expect you to put us up at an equally good hotel.

00:39:43.660 | And I named the other one and they did it.

00:39:45.860 | Wow.

00:39:46.860 | And in fact, uh, we were in a fairly large group.

00:39:49.980 | One of the rooms that we had confirmed was a suite for, um, four people in one room.

00:39:56.140 | And uh, they put them up in a suite at this other hotel.

00:40:00.500 | It was probably much more expensive, much more expensive.

00:40:03.420 | Yeah.

00:40:04.420 | Okay.

00:40:05.420 | So a few last ways to get status.

00:40:07.460 | So one, you can get it gifted to you.

00:40:09.700 | Uh, there are a lot of statuses that let you give other people status and I know you've

00:40:14.060 | had high tier Delta status.

00:40:15.700 | So every year you could choose to give someone status.

00:40:18.180 | Yeah.

00:40:19.180 | Yeah.

00:40:20.180 | In fact, uh, high tier Delta will let you gift two people now.

00:40:22.700 | Like, so Delta gives you a one choice benefit when you become platinum and three when you

00:40:29.620 | become diamond.

00:40:31.620 | So at platinum you can, um, you can, you can use your choice benefit to gift two people

00:40:37.540 | Delta silver status.

00:40:39.540 | Um, and at, uh, diamond, you could use one of your three choice benefits to gift, uh,

00:40:46.220 | two people gold status.

00:40:48.060 | So that's pretty good.

00:40:49.220 | Yeah.

00:40:50.220 | One of the other cool ones, which isn't really gifting, but when you hit a million miles

00:40:53.540 | on United, which I'll get to million miler and lifetime status next, you actually can

00:40:58.220 | nominate a person that just gets your status.

00:41:00.300 | Yeah.

00:41:01.300 | That's amazing.

00:41:02.300 | So for, for three years, my dad had million miler and United and global services.

00:41:06.780 | And I constantly begged him to make me his companion instead of my mom, which he didn't

00:41:11.060 | do, which is probably the best choice for him.

00:41:13.740 | But I was like, come on, make me your companion.

00:41:16.780 | And so now, uh, funny enough, he still has million miler status.

00:41:20.500 | He has a lifetime status, so he's got one K for life.

00:41:23.400 | So my mom also has one K for life.

00:41:25.500 | That's awesome.

00:41:26.500 | Which is really, really amazing, which I guess is a good, a good dovetail.

00:41:29.360 | So there's a lot of different airlines that will gift you status, Delta, Alaska, American,

00:41:33.600 | Hilton, Hyatt at different tiers.

00:41:36.420 | But that lifetime status is another one where once you've played the game enough, you can

00:41:40.940 | stop playing the game.

00:41:42.620 | Yeah.

00:41:43.620 | Yeah.

00:41:44.620 | Um, and, and my wife and I are so close to that with, with Delta.

00:41:47.220 | I mean, well, we both have, um, Delta diamond status, which is the top tier before you get

00:41:53.380 | to those like secret tiers.

00:41:55.860 | Um, and, but we're both probably within about five years of getting, um, 2 million miler

00:42:04.600 | status, which will give us a platinum status for life, which in my mind, that's good enough.

00:42:11.320 | I would miss some things about diamond, but once, once you have platinum automatically,

00:42:16.840 | the extra work involved in getting beyond that is so much is so much because the bonuses

00:42:21.940 | from credit cards, you don't get to just earn the Delta.

00:42:24.000 | You have to start all the way from the bottom.

00:42:25.780 | Exactly.

00:42:26.780 | Yeah.

00:42:27.780 | Exactly.

00:42:28.780 | So we'll just stop there.

00:42:29.780 | And with the major airlines, uh, it's about a million points.

00:42:32.420 | Lifetime points gets you to the kind of like second tier status, like gold level.

00:42:38.220 | Um, and then depending on the airline Delta, you can get to three 60 with 5 million.

00:42:42.340 | You can get to global services with 4 million on United, but wow, that is a lot of miles.

00:42:46.780 | I don't even know how to comprehend flying 5 million miles.

00:42:50.380 | There are people that do it.

00:42:51.660 | I'm never going to get there.

00:42:52.660 | I think I, I'm closest on Marriott, which is 10 years at platinum and 600 nights.

00:42:59.260 | We'll get you platinum for life.

00:43:01.060 | Yeah.

00:43:02.060 | And I feel like that is in striking distance.

00:43:04.400 | Everything else is off the table.

00:43:05.780 | I actually have that with Marriott.

00:43:07.980 | And, um, the, the reason I have it though, um, is, you know, I've had, I've had status

00:43:15.820 | mostly from credit cards for many years now and the credit cards, the Marriott credit

00:43:21.980 | cards give you, um, nights each year.

00:43:25.780 | So most of the Marriott credit cards give you 15 nights.

00:43:29.500 | And while having multiple consumer Marriott cards doesn't stack, like you won't get more

00:43:35.180 | than 15 nights by having two consumer Marriott cards.

00:43:37.900 | If you have a consumer and a business card, those two stack to 30 nights.

00:43:42.080 | And now if, if the consumer card you have is the brilliant card, then you have 10 more

00:43:47.140 | nights.

00:43:48.140 | So you have 40 nights each year automatically.

00:43:49.500 | So, so let's say you, you stay, you know, 10 nights a year at Marriott anyway.

00:43:54.340 | Um, so that's 50 nights every year.

00:43:56.680 | That's counting towards that, uh, like 600.

00:44:00.260 | Yeah.

00:44:01.260 | That's counting towards the 600.

00:44:02.260 | So 10 years of playing the Marriott game and you're going to be pretty close to platinum

00:44:05.220 | for life.

00:44:06.220 | Yeah.

00:44:07.220 | Um, yeah, that's the way I see it is I need like three more years of platinum.

00:44:10.420 | And so it might be worth it even to just pay, to have the brilliant card, to just make sure

00:44:15.300 | I get there because it's a three year cost of a, you know, five or $600 annual fee minus

00:44:21.740 | all the credits and coupons and all that.

00:44:24.120 | But then you don't have to play again and then you have it for life.

00:44:26.220 | So the game of kind of hitting lifetime is super interesting on the flights.

00:44:30.220 | I don't think I'll ever get there.

00:44:31.620 | Um, a couple of quick ones.

00:44:33.500 | One is there are a couple of cases where you can buy status.

00:44:38.020 | So I think frontier allowed you to buy status, uh, and it was very open.

00:44:41.540 | It wasn't a secret.

00:44:42.540 | It's like, you could just buy it.

00:44:43.540 | Yep.

00:44:44.540 | You don't have to fly on frontier a lot, but if you do, you could do it.

00:44:46.740 | If you do, it's actually a great deal, uh, you know, cause there's things like a wave

00:44:50.540 | pet fees, which if you travel with your pet, it would add up like crazy.

00:44:54.920 | And you get like free changes, all kinds of things that, um, that can make it very much

00:44:59.380 | worth it.

00:45:00.380 | Yeah.

00:45:01.380 | Yeah.

00:45:02.380 | Americans sold status in the past, but not right now.

00:45:03.440 | There's a site that I think is pretty sketchy called airline status.com that will claims

00:45:07.580 | to sell you status for hundreds of dollars a quarter or a year.

00:45:10.820 | I will absolutely not endorse it, but they claim to do it.

00:45:14.580 | If anyone has experience there, I would love to hear how that went.

00:45:17.780 | Um, and then also this isn't really buying it, but there are corporate partnerships.

00:45:22.140 | So if you work at a large company and they have a program with Delta to save money on

00:45:27.480 | long haul flights, chances are there are a few people at that company that are getting

00:45:31.740 | comp status.

00:45:32.740 | That's right.

00:45:33.740 | And so my wife, when she worked at Lyft, she did the partnership with Delta.

00:45:37.140 | And there were a few people on the executive team at Lyft that got comp status.

00:45:40.860 | And so I don't know if you can make friends with whoever's doing that deal.

00:45:44.940 | Maybe you can get on that short list or just be an entrepreneur and become a huge company

00:45:49.300 | and partner with Delta or United, whoever you want to fly.

00:45:52.220 | Yeah.

00:45:53.220 | And then on the corporate side, if you do run a company, maybe it's not big enough to

00:45:56.580 | do a partnership like that, but it is probably big enough to join one of the corporate programs.

00:46:02.020 | So United has perks plus and United for business.

00:46:05.120 | There's one with each, I think Sky bonus is Delta and I can't remember Americans, but

00:46:09.440 | they totally revamped it.

00:46:11.840 | But there are ways to earn extra points for regular flights for everyone on your team.

00:46:16.640 | So in United, you put all of your employees in, you earn a much smaller number of points,

00:46:22.060 | but those points can be used to generate free flight certificates or status.

00:46:26.800 | So it ends up costing somewhere on the order of like 80,000 United miles to get United

00:46:33.380 | silver and 160,000 United miles to get United gold in their corporate program.

00:46:38.380 | And then last there's this pass plus program, which basically United lets you pre-buy at

00:46:43.940 | the beginning of the year, dollars to use on United at a discount and not a discount

00:46:49.060 | like a percent off, but depending on the fare, you get a baked in corporate rate.

00:46:55.140 | And if you spend enough, they will comp you status.

00:46:58.420 | Yeah.

00:46:59.420 | So it starts at $25,000, we'll start comping you gold all the way up to this year, global

00:47:04.980 | services.

00:47:05.980 | If you pre-buy $75,000, you'll get global services for a year.

00:47:09.540 | Yeah.

00:47:10.540 | The downside is the funds, as long as you keep renewing the program, which I want to

00:47:14.900 | say is at least $10,000 a year, you won't lose the dollars.

00:47:19.600 | But to get the status, you have to commit to $75,000 of spend every single year.

00:47:23.500 | So if you already spend $75,000 a year on United, you'll probably get global services

00:47:28.420 | anyways.

00:47:29.420 | I was going to say.

00:47:30.420 | But here's a way to get it up front.

00:47:31.420 | And then there are a couple other things that I'll fall in the bucket of corporate partnerships.

00:47:33.740 | If you get a founder's card membership, you're going to get some free hotel status, IHG and

00:47:39.740 | Hilton Gold and Caesars Diamond.

00:47:41.740 | It depends on the type of founder's card membership you get.

00:47:44.580 | I know, there's tiers now.

00:47:45.580 | There's tiers.

00:47:46.580 | And if you get the kind from having JetBlue status, then the tier of founder's card you

00:47:53.500 | get is the tier that is basically you get on their spam mail.

00:47:58.460 | You get constantly, constantly spammed to pay up to the higher tier.

00:48:04.280 | And that's really the only benefit that I could find out of it, as if that was a benefit.

00:48:09.020 | And then on the vacation home side, I did a whole episode on vacation homes.

00:48:12.540 | We're not going to go down that, but I noticed that there's a vacation home thing where you

00:48:16.420 | buy into a membership, like a luxury vacation property called Exclusive Resorts.

00:48:20.420 | And I think every Exclusive Resorts membership also comes with a Delta Platinum status, but

00:48:24.580 | you usually have to commit to spending somewhere on the order of $40,000 or $50,000 a year

00:48:28.860 | on vacation homes.

00:48:30.340 | But if you do that, there's a potential option.

00:48:34.220 | Timeshare ownership.

00:48:35.220 | Is that similar to what you're talking about?

00:48:37.340 | Because those also have elite benefits in some cases.

00:48:42.300 | Yes.

00:48:43.300 | Often with the hotel.

00:48:44.300 | This is the only one that I know.

00:48:45.300 | This one went to the airline, which is kind of cool.

00:48:47.260 | Yeah.

00:48:48.260 | Yeah, that's different.

00:48:49.260 | Getting free.

00:48:50.260 | You're not the kind of person spending $50,000 on vacation homes.

00:48:52.260 | You're probably also the kind of person that could get a Centurion card and get Delta Platinum

00:48:55.780 | free also.

00:48:56.780 | True.

00:48:57.780 | I think that's all the shortcuts that I found.

00:49:00.580 | And I went through most of what you've written.

00:49:01.940 | The one question that'll wrap us up is, is this actually worth it?

00:49:07.500 | We talked about all the ways to get it, but when does it actually make sense to get elite

00:49:11.540 | status?

00:49:12.540 | And are there actually ways you can get some of these perks without having to chase the

00:49:15.860 | status?

00:49:16.860 | Yeah.

00:49:17.860 | So, first of all, is it worth it?

00:49:21.220 | Loaded question.

00:49:22.220 | Well, so at a high level, you could sort of argue no, because if you need to do tricks

00:49:29.860 | to get the elite status, then it means you're not flying that airline a lot or staying in

00:49:35.340 | those hotels enough to get the status without doing tricks to get there.

00:49:40.700 | And if you're not staying that much or flying that much, how much value could you be getting

00:49:46.780 | from these things?

00:49:48.100 | On the other hand, if you do the tricks to get status and it doesn't cost you that much,

00:49:53.780 | so take for example, getting Marriott Platinum status, which you could get just by having

00:49:57.700 | the Bonvoy Brilliant card, the $650 annual fee is offset by great perks anyway.

00:50:05.580 | So you could think of it as being worth paying anyway, but you get Platinum status and you

00:50:12.620 | might just have, maybe you've got two big Marriott stays that year, but maybe they're

00:50:19.320 | stays that are important to you.

00:50:20.820 | Like maybe you're staying at the, you know, St. Regis Bora Bora and breakfast there would

00:50:28.020 | cost you something like $50 per person per day, but you're going to get it free because

00:50:33.620 | you have that status.

00:50:34.860 | And so the benefits can really add up even just with a couple of stays a year.

00:50:40.300 | I mean, it's funny because when you say that, I think, well, I did stay at the St. Regis

00:50:43.940 | and Bora Bora and I did get free breakfast and that was awesome.

00:50:46.980 | However, I find myself now that I have some status, when I look where we're going, it's

00:50:53.020 | almost like I put these blinders on that say, well, let's just look at places where I can

00:50:56.700 | get these perks.

00:50:57.700 | And I often wonder, and I'm starting to push myself to not think this way.

00:51:02.780 | If I didn't worry about trying to stay at the place that I had the status, could I just

00:51:06.500 | book a rate that included the free breakfast?

00:51:08.620 | And could that even be cheaper or a better experience?

00:51:11.380 | And I've broken out of the shell on airlines there because UnitedSilver just isn't really

00:51:15.680 | worth anything.

00:51:17.880 | And so now I just booked the direct flight.

00:51:19.740 | That's the easiest.

00:51:20.740 | And if you start playing the points and miles game enough, like you said, you're flying

00:51:24.000 | in business or even premium economy, the status kind of doesn't matter.

00:51:27.620 | And so I do question whether sometimes having status forces you to spend more to stay in

00:51:33.180 | a thing.

00:51:34.180 | That's why they do it.

00:51:35.180 | I mean, that's exactly it.

00:51:36.620 | People do.

00:51:37.620 | And yeah, so I think you're exactly right.

00:51:40.540 | I think that analysis is right that in most cases, you're probably better off, you know,

00:51:48.180 | buying your own elite status by, as you said, you know, booking a stay that already includes

00:51:53.020 | the free breakfast, if that's what's important to you.

00:51:57.180 | Maybe even negotiating rates with a hotel that regardless of whether you have status

00:52:01.500 | or not.

00:52:03.300 | So the flip side is, you know, a lot of if you're really into this game, points and miles

00:52:12.460 | and everything to me, like I just love the game.

00:52:17.080 | And so it's a game where, you know, you win not just by earning lots of points and having

00:52:22.980 | the most points.

00:52:23.980 | You win by taking advantage of it and, you know, booking the best stays, booking the

00:52:29.300 | best flights and travel, you know, traveling the world and enjoying it.

00:52:33.380 | So the winning is amazing.

00:52:36.780 | And to me, the elite status thing is almost like part of that game.

00:52:40.220 | It's like badges you earn along the way.

00:52:42.180 | And then when you enjoy it, when you get like an amazing suite at a hotel, when you get

00:52:48.020 | regularly bumped up into first class when you're flying, you know, regionally, those

00:52:53.980 | things, it's hard to, you know, sort of put a dollar value on that.

00:53:00.140 | And so if you have the means where you can do these games to get elite status, you know,

00:53:08.060 | it's not hurting you financially to do it.

00:53:10.540 | You might find it's worth doing just because it's fun.

00:53:12.580 | Yeah.

00:53:13.580 | That's kind of where I am.

00:53:14.580 | I've enjoyed the game over the years.

00:53:15.740 | I think when you have kids that are really young, you're like, well, is this game worth

00:53:18.820 | it?

00:53:19.820 | This this couple of years.

00:53:20.820 | I feel like I'm kind of getting ready to go back into it.

00:53:23.380 | One thing we didn't really talk too much about, we just touched on a couple of things is when

00:53:27.500 | it comes to getting these perks without the status, I'm actually going to point people

00:53:30.780 | to two episodes you did on rolling your own hotel status and rolling your own airline

00:53:34.220 | status.

00:53:35.220 | Great.

00:53:36.220 | A couple highlights.

00:53:37.220 | You want free check bags?

00:53:38.220 | Yes, you can get status or you can just open up a credit card with almost any of the airlines

00:53:41.300 | and you get free check bags.

00:53:43.820 | You want upgrades at hotels.

00:53:45.300 | You want early check in and late checkout.

00:53:47.300 | There are a lot of upgrade programs.

00:53:48.980 | We built one for ourselves at allthehacks.com/upgrade where you can book a rate that gives you through

00:53:54.340 | Hyatt Preve, Marriott Stars and Luminous, Four Seasons Preferred Partners, a lot of

00:53:58.420 | the perks you would get with status anyways.

00:54:00.420 | And sometimes I caught a clip in one episode you did with maybe even a higher upgrade priority.

00:54:07.060 | So those are the perks you get there.

00:54:09.460 | And then I know you've talked a lot about you can just use your points and book suites.

00:54:12.740 | You can use your points and book business class and just kind of do it that way.

00:54:15.700 | So I'll point people to those two episodes in the interest of time.

00:54:19.460 | But there are also a lot of ways that you could just generate a lot of these benefits

00:54:22.940 | without necessarily having to go and earn the status.

00:54:26.580 | One of the funny things when we were talking about Hyatt a lot, Hyatt is the hardest of

00:54:31.220 | the hotel chains to get top tier status, but they have the best top tier status.

00:54:35.120 | But they also have the most ways that you can get the benefits of similar to status

00:54:41.820 | without getting status.

00:54:43.460 | So they're the best at allowing you to book, you know, suites with points.

00:54:49.580 | They have the thing like we talked about before of guest of honor.

00:54:51.620 | So if you have a friend who has status, you can get maybe they'll give you a guest of

00:54:55.380 | honor certificate.

00:54:56.380 | Or pay cash and upgrade with points to a suite.

00:54:58.820 | Exactly.

00:54:59.820 | There's so many ways with Hyatt to do that.

00:55:01.180 | So it is ironic that it's the best top tier status, but also has the best ways of avoiding

00:55:07.980 | needing that status.

00:55:09.300 | OK, so last two quick things.

00:55:11.620 | One, we didn't talk about car rental status at all.

00:55:14.300 | I'll highlight that the reason why is that you can get car rental status pretty easily.

00:55:18.880 | If you have a Chase Reserve or Amex Platinum, you're getting top tier or right below top

00:55:22.760 | tier status on most programs.

00:55:25.840 | So we kind of skipped that over.

00:55:27.920 | Could you in one minute explain whether car rental status even matters or why?

00:55:31.580 | Yeah, I like I like national executive status because so, you know, national has that emerald

00:55:37.300 | aisle where you just pick your own car.

00:55:39.140 | But with executive status, you go to the executive aisle and you could pick from bigger cars.

00:55:43.300 | And what I've done with that is not just get nicer cars in the executive aisle, but also

00:55:50.740 | there have been times where we're traveling with enough people where we would need two

00:55:54.500 | cars or we would need something like a minivan or one of those six seater SUVs.

00:56:00.620 | And often we so we'll book two.

00:56:05.620 | We'll see if we find one of those big minivan or whatever in the executive aisle, because

00:56:09.780 | that's where it would normally be.

00:56:11.580 | And if we if it is, then we cancel the other booking.

00:56:14.200 | And for anyone who made it this far, that's a hack I've never heard.

00:56:16.780 | And I love it.

00:56:17.940 | Last thing before we wrap, we've talked a lot about the show.

00:56:20.420 | You've been on it before.

00:56:21.700 | Everybody should go check out the Frequent Miler site.

00:56:24.220 | All the episodes you do on Frequent Miler in the air.

00:56:26.400 | But could you tell people really briefly why we even managed to meet up and what you're

00:56:30.180 | in the middle of doing?

00:56:31.180 | Sure.

00:56:32.180 | Yeah.

00:56:33.180 | So our team does a challenge, some kind of travel challenge where we try to show off

00:56:37.660 | like what's the most you could do with points and miles.

00:56:41.180 | So the first ever challenge was called 40K to Far Away, where we each had 40000 points

00:56:45.420 | and 400 dollars to try to go as far away as we could.

00:56:50.220 | And each year we make up a different challenge.

00:56:52.200 | This year it's called Flying by the Seat of our Points.

00:56:56.620 | And the idea is that every two days ish, we're given a destination that we need to get to.

00:57:04.000 | Like we don't know ahead of time until until we're doing a live stream on YouTube and we're

00:57:09.280 | being told, OK, next stop is here.

00:57:13.080 | And so we're just starting the challenge.

00:57:15.460 | The first stop for all of us to get to is Los Angeles.

00:57:21.300 | And so today I need to get there by about three.

00:57:26.420 | And our check in at the hotel, we have to be there before six p.m. for our live stream

00:57:31.660 | check in and over live stream, we'll learn where we're going next, which will be international

00:57:37.340 | destinations.

00:57:38.340 | And so we're all going to meet up in L.A., but the three of us competing, then we'll

00:57:42.020 | go off to different international destinations and then the final stage will come back together

00:57:46.140 | somewhere internationally.

00:57:47.580 | We don't know where we're going to show off like how you could use points and miles to

00:57:51.740 | book last minute travel.

00:57:52.900 | This is awesome.

00:57:53.900 | By the time this comes out, this will probably have ended.

00:57:56.340 | I wish you the best of luck on your travels.

00:57:59.460 | Thank you so much for being here.

00:58:00.460 | It was great being here.

11 Shortcuts To Get Elite Status (Insider Secrets To FREE Perks)

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